


The Circle is Complete (I am a master now)

by atamascolily



Series: Inheritance [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Backstory, Character Study, Flashbacks, Freeform, Gen, Heist Planning, Jedi Training, Let the Force Guide You, Life on Tatooine, Meditation, Missing Scene, Post-Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Pre-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Processing Trauma, Self Confidence Issues, Tatooine, Tatooine Culture, Why Didn't You Tell Me?, from a certain point of view, lightsaber construction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: They say you can't go home again, and Luke never thinks of Tatooine as home anymore, yet somehow he's here again with his friends, preparing to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt, and there's time enough for a trip on the side. He's gone full circle, back to the beginning, and it's only the only place where he can realize how far he's come.Or, what makes someone a true master of the Force.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As in canon, Luke is 19 during the events of _A New Hope_ ; _Empire Strikes Back_ takes place three years later; _Return of the Jedi_ one year after that. This fic is primarily canon-compliant with the Original Trilogy movies and not necessarily any other media. There are some EU/Legends novels that take place in between Episodes 5 and 6, like _Shadows of the Empire_ , but I've basically ignored those events in favor of my own interpretations of what had to happen during that year to transform Luke into the card-carrying badass we see in _Return of the Jedi_. Likewise, I've carried over some of my assumptions about Luke's life on Tatooine prior to the events of _A New Hope_ \- particularly regarding Biggs and Camie - from my fic "When Life Gives You a Lemon Tree", although the fics exist independently from each other and you don't need to read one to enjoy the other.

A familiar dryness in the air hit Luke the second the X-wing's hatch opened in the Tatooine desert. When he lived here, he took it for granted, not knowing any other atmosphere. Now, after living and breathing and fighting on over a hundred worlds - not to mention the stale, recycled air of starships and more than a few space stations - in the last four years as a commander in the Rebel Alliance and a Jedi-in-training, things were different. The Tatooine air swept over him, comforting and yet somehow suffocating at the same time. 

They'd gone in at twilight, silently and with few lights, to avoid suspicion - Luke with Artoo in his X-wing, and Leia and the others with Chewie on the _Millenium Falcon_. They landed the ships on the edge of a wide plateau, sheltered by mountains in three directions, a hundred kilometers east of Jabba's palace, and far away from any other landmark of significance. Tatooine's defenses weren't much to speak of - it was a sleepy little planet on the Outer Rim, without much going for it - but they wanted to avoid any possibility of prying eyes. 

The Imperial presence on this planet was minimal - a few troops, tax collectors and bureaucrats quartered in a base outside Mos Eisley, all paid handsomely to look the other way by the local government (such as it was). More problematic was the entrenched cartel of Jabba the Hutt, and all the smugglers and criminals that flocked here on his business - especially since this particular mission targeted the crime lord himself. But between Luke's memory of Tatooine terrain and his and Chewie's piloting skills, it was easy to find a spot where they would remain undisturbed. 

"Well, Artoo, here we are again," Luke said, as he climbed out of the cockpit, stretching the stiffness out of his limbs. "Back where it all began. Doesn't look like anything's changed. Bet you never thought you'd end up on this rock again, huh?" 

The droid chuckled, a series of beeps and bird-like whistles. 

Luke was amused. "Oh, you liked it better in retrospect after we went to Dagobah, huh? Well, fair enough..." 

His voice trailed off as he looked up towards the two twin suns, rapidly falling towards the horizon. Growing up, they'd been the most dominant features of his universe. From orbit, they'd looked just like any other stars. And from the ground-

His flippant remark to Artoo was wrong. Tatooine itself hadn't changed. But he had. 

***

It had taken almost a year to get the rescue expedition for Han Solo this far. Some of the delay had been due to more immediately pressing military concerns - Luke himself had participated in two more headquarter transfers and half a dozen skirmishes with Imperial forces. And then there were other, more personal matters, that simply could not be rushed if the mission were to succeed. The good news was that Han, frozen in carbonite, was unlikely to notice any delays. And since Jabba kept him on display as a warning to debtors and double-crossers, he wasn't subjected to any more tortures during that time. 

Luke spent the first month after the Cloud City debacle recuperating from the shock and loss of his right arm and adjusting to his new prosthetic. According to the medical droid, he was lucky that lightsaber wounds instantly cauterized and sterilized, so he hadn't been in any immediate danger of dying from blood loss or infection. In the immediate aftermath of his battle with Darth Vader, shock, exposure and exhaustion were by far the most pressing concerns. Had it not been for Leia, who sat with Luke, soothing him with reassurances and keeping him hydrated in those few hours before the _Falcon_ had reached real medical aid, he might not have made it. 

It would have been ironic to survive going toe-to-toe with Darth Vader, losing a limb, falling several hundred meters off a catwalk, and clinging one-handed to the underside of a station, only to die after being rescued by his friends. But, as he knew well from his time as a Rebel commander, combat deaths came in all sorts of forms and most weren't particularly flashy and dramatic. 

In those first few weeks, he spent most of his time sleeping, but his dreams were restless and fierce and quickly turned to nightmares. Over and over again, he confronted Vader - sometimes Vader's lightsaber pierced his heart and not his hand; sometimes, Luke killed him and took on Vader's mask, becoming what he feared most. Sometimes he fell forever through the Bespin clouds, never striking solid land; other times he smashed to pieces on the smooth plasti-steel sides of Cloud City. Over, and over again, it was the pain that woke him - the pain in his hand that was no longer there, somehow overlaid atop the robotic prosthetic the medical droid had outfitted him with.

There were no nerves there anymore - he couldn't feel anything in the mechnical arm, though it was responsive and clever and obeyed his mental orders just as his hand of flesh did. And yet - there was still pain, and sometimes it flared up so fiercely, he thought he was losing the limb all over again. The medical droids said it was just his neural system misfiring, and it would fade in time, and would he like some pain drugs in the meantime? 

Sometimes, he took the drugs and slept a dreamless sleep that was not restful; sometimes, he refused them and lay for hours with the hand that was no longer there throbbing, until he fell asleep again. 

Once he dreamed Master Yoda and old Ben Kenobi were sitting by his bed in the medical unit, talking about him as if he weren't there. 

"Well, he survived. And he didn't give into the Dark Side as we feared. Somehow, he found a middle way forward." Ben was saying. 

"Hmmph." Yoda tapped his stick, skeptical and unimpressed with Luke, as usual. "Ready he was not. At great cost this outcome came. Suffered much, he has, hmmph, yes. This is no victory." 

"No, no victory. But also no defeat..." 

_Ben,_ Luke sputtered in his dream, mouthing frantically, _why didn't you tell me Darth Vader was my father? Why didn't you tell me-_

At his first exclamation, the two old Jedi vanished abruptly, as if Luke had spoken aloud, and he woke before he could even finish the words, gasping and panting. A few seconds later, he realized he was crying. 

He did not see them again after that. 

After a while, the dreams faded, and he was able to sleep normally again. 

***

During the weeks Luke slept, Leia dashed about on the Rebellion's business, putting out metaphorical (and occasionally literal) fires. Chewie was out seeking leads about Han and Jabba with the aid of Lando Calrissian - the former Cloud City administrator who had switched sides a number of times but now seemed firmly entrenched in the Rebels' cause since the Empire had taken over his station. 

By the time Luke was officially released from the medical ship four weeks later, the others had assembled the beginnings of a plan to rescue Han. But Luke needed two things if he was going to be of any use to them as a Jedi: confidence in his own abilities, and a new lightsaber. 

So he threw himself back into his training in earnest, right there on the flagship of the Rebel fleet. He did the exercises Master Yoda had taught him, waking before local planetary dawn to sit quietly for hours in meditation. He locked himself in the shipboard gym and ran for hours to strengthen his body, practicing flips and handstands while he lifted weights with his mind. He trained blindfolded with Obi-Wan's remote seeker, dodging the energy bolts it spat at him at unpredictable intervals, until the day he slammed the unit with the Force so hard it broke beyond all repair, and he decided that would have to be good enough. 

After a few hours of this each day, he showered, changed and ate in the mess unit with the other Rebels, laughing and smiling among friends as they discussed the days' events, as if he were just another officer. In the afternoons and evenings, he attended military meetings and briefings, offering what advice and support he could. Then he would meditate quietly in his quarters for a time until he fell asleep and the cycle began all over again. 

In this way, the hard edges in his mind gradually softened, and, as he felt his strength return, so, too, did his confidence in his own abilities. But it was tempered now by a level of discernment that he had never before possessed - which allowed him to go further and farther into the Force than he had ever thought possible. 

Trust in the Force meant trust in himself, too. But focus on himself too much and he would lose the Force entirely. And there was the persistent, invisible ache in his missing hand to keep him from getting too pleased with himself. 

***

The lightsaber was significantly harder to acquire. They had always been rare weapons, shrouded in mystery and carried only by Jedi. When the Jedi had vanished, they had taken their lightsabers with them. Because the Jedi had so fiercely guarded the secrets behind their construction and operation, Luke would need to somehow find them if he had any hope of acquiring a new one. 

As it happened, Luke knew of at least two Jedi left in the galaxy, but he wasn't sure if he was on speaking terms with either of them: the hermit Master Yoda on Dagobah, and the disembodied spirit of Obi-wan - Ben - Kenobi. Ben's lightsaber had been lost with the explosion of the Death Star, and was irretrievable. Luke didn't even know if Master Yoda _had_ a lightsaber to begin with - the image of the tiny, wizened old creature swinging a lightsaber blade was a comical one. But perhaps they could give him pointers if he asked - which he had no intention whatsoever of doing. 

Even if he could contact them through the Force, the way he'd somehow managed to reach Leia in the Bespin clouds, he wasn't sure he wanted to talk to either of them. For one thing, he hadn't exactly left his training under the best of circumstances. The last thing he wanted to hear from _either_ of them was some form of "I told you so". Or, worse, their pity or contempt. 

_You told me to trust my feelings, Ben. And then, when I wanted to save my friends, you told me not to trust them. Which was right? And what, exactly, makes you the judge of all this?_

Even describing what had happened on Cloud City - assuming they didn't already know - was impossible. And then there were those secrets that they'd kept from him about his father-

_You said Darth Vader was your student - what happened with him to make him turn towards the Dark Side? Was it your poor teaching skills, perhaps?_

No, he was not going to talk to them. At least not until he had come to terms with his own emotions, anyway. After they'd rescued Han, he would go back to Yoda and they would have a talk. A _long_ talk. Ben, too. Until then, he would figure things out without his teachers' support. 

_I have to go rescue my friends_ , he'd insisted when he'd abandoned his training with Yoda. Well, it had come at great cost, but he had mostly succeeded in that. Now there was just one more to go. 

But, if Yoda and Ben were out as resources, then how could he get a new lightsaber? 

So he sat cross-legged on his bed in the infirmary, a pillow folded under him for support, in the position Master Yoda had insisted was the most comfortable for long, solitary hours of meditation. He looked out the portholes of his room on the _Pleura Vortan_ , lost in the sight of the vast spiral arm of the galaxy unfolding away in front of him. As his breathing steadied, he opened himself completely to the Force, losing himself in the ebb and flow of the energy that poured through all things. He listened. For a long time, he heard many things: the chattering of endless minds, but nothing that would lead him to a new lightsaber. 

But eventually, he felt a faint tug and tickle at the back of his mind. As he waited patiently, the sensation grew and grew until it was no longer a vague feeling but a certainty - _This is where you need to go._

Two planetary visits, a fistfight, and a few outright bribes and forged documents later, he had what he'd been looking for: an old, _old_ Jedi training manual he'd dug up out of the ruins of a burned-out ruin in the middle of nowhere. Most of the volume was a complete loss, but there were a few precious diagrams on lightsaber construction still intact, along with all the associated commentary. After he'd studied them for a few weeks, he had a basic understanding of what he was in for: what parts he needed, how they all fit together, and various pitfalls to watch out for in the construction process. 

It was custom, Luke read, for a Jedi apprentice to make his own lightsaber when he was ready to take on the status of master. It seemed fitting, somehow, that he was doing it now, despite -or perhaps because of - the erratic nature of his education. 

_I can't always trust what others tell me, no matter who they are. I have to trust myself, stay true to myself and who I am. Otherwise I am lost._

Collecting all the parts, particularly the all-important khyber crystal, was several adventures in itself, and putting it together tested every nerve and fiber in his being. There were weeks when he was sure it was all for nothing, that he would never finish, there was no hope. Then, one morning, he flicked the switch - and with a familiar buzz, the glowing blade flashed into existence and cut through the wooden blocks he'd assembled for practice. 

He shouted so loudly in surprise and elation that the medical droids thought he'd sliced off his hand again and wouldn't let him go until they'd checked him over thoroughly. It was a nightmare getting out of the medwing this time, but it was totally worth it. He had a lightsaber again at last. 

The new lightsaber's blade was a phosphorescent green, instead of the blinding blue-white of his old one. That particular weapon - which had once belonged to his father, Anakin Skywalker (now Darth Vader) - was the one Ben had given him on his last day on Tatooine, now lost forever in the bowels of Cloud City along with his severed hand. 

It was fitting, he decided, that the old lightsaber was gone. He wasn't sure he would be comfortable with it now that he knew more of its history. And, since he would likely be facing Vader again in the future, it wasn't a weapon he felt comfortable using against him. Better to have something that was truly his own. 

And how, exactly, had Obi-Wan gotten his father's lightsaber in the first place, anyway? There was a story behind that, and old Ben was _definitely_ going to have to tell the truth on that one...

By the time Luke was finally ready for the assault on Jabba's palace, it took another month to hammer out final details of the plan and get out to Tatooine at last.


	2. Chapter 2

The plan itself was simple: one by one, infiltrate Jabba's palace; get Han unfrozen; and then, on Luke's signal, escape. The details were the sticky part. 

Getting in was easy. Lando first, as a guard; then Artoo and Threepio, as gifts to flatter the Hutt and hopefully charm him into bargaining with them. Then Leia (in disguise) with Chewie (not in disguise), to unfreeze Han and escape (if they could) or get themselves locked in Jabba's dungeon (if they couldn't). Then Luke, at last, would come and ask Jabba directly for their release. And, when that didn't work - because it probably wouldn't work - they'd all escape together. 

"Why do we have to ask first if we know what he'll say?" Lando wanted to know, but Luke insisted on it and Leia supported him, and that was that. 

"I'll ask him. And if that doesn't work, I'll use the Force to - persuade him. And if that doesn't work, we'll break out together."

Lando muttered that something that might have been "Idealists!" under his breath but didn't push it. "We can't escape from the palace itself," he said. "It's too well guarded." 

"Let's get Jabba himself to take us out in the open then," Luke said. 

"What do you mean?" 

Chewie growled something Luke couldn't follow. 

Lando looked at the Wookie in surprise. "Yes, Jabba feeds his most prominent prisoners to the Sarlacc out in the desert for entertainment, but I don't see how that helps us-- " He inhaled sharply. "Ahhh. Got it. That might work. It'll definitely get us out of the palace, anyway." 

"So all we have to do is be so outrageous he'll want to execute us as quickly and spectacularly as possible," Leia said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "What could possibly go wrong?" 

"Refuge in audacity and all that," said Luke. "It worked with the Death Star; I think it will work again with Jabba. Hutts are cunning, but not particularly known for creativity. I don't think he'll see that coming." 

Leia didn't believe Luke could pull off some of the maneuvers he was describing. So he had to demonstrate for them, jumping into and back-flipping while catching his lightsaber out of the air. "How did you learn acrobatics like that?" she demanded, impressed in spite of herself. 

"Practice," Luke said with a shrug. "Okay, and with some help from the Force," he amended, when he saw her glaring at him. 

"That's more like it," she agreed. "Okay, now that our fancy-pants Jedi here has proven his point, does anybody else have questions?" 

"So I'll have a blaster on me, and maybe Leia will have something if she doesn't get caught unfreezing Han, but what will you do for weapons?" Lando wanted to know. "You're going to lose your lightsaber if you walk in the front door with it, and that's not the sort of thing you can pick up just anywhere." 

"I'll store my lightsaber inside Artoo. I don't think Jabba will think to search the droids. Artoo's pretty resourceful - and stubborn. When we get out to the sail barge, I'll signal him and he'll catapult it to me." 

"What if he misses?" 

"He won't miss. And I can use the Force to catch it if I have to." 

"You'd trust this droid with your life?" Lando asked. 

"Already have," Leia interjected. 

"Several times over, actually," said Luke.

Lando was impressed. "That's great loyalty from a droid." 

"Artoo is a good droid," said Luke. "I'm lucky to have him." 

Before they adjourned, Lando had one additional warning for Leia. "Jabba has a kink for humanoid females, and who knows what it's like in his dungeons. You can't let anyone see who you are once you're inside the palace or it's not going to go well."

"I can handle it," Leia said, folding her arms across her chest and glaring back at him.

"Trust me, it's a rougher crowd than you're used to," Lando said, but Leia only shrugged and the conversation was effectively over. 

***

The hardest part of the whole business was keeping Threepio out of the loop. Not only was he terrible with secrets - an odd failing for a diplomacy droid - he was prone to anxiety and exceptionally high-strung. Since Luke didn't want to have to perform a memory wipe, it was easier for everyone - Threepio included - if he didn't know what was in store for him. As a bonus, this way he couldn't inadvertently warn Jabba of their plans. 

When they arrived on Tatooine, Lando went to Jabba's palace right away. It took a few days for him to be accepted into the routine before they felt comfortable sending the droids in. So, while they waited, there was time enough for Luke to slip alone into the desert. 

***

"I'm going away for a while," Luke told Leia and Chewie before he left. He was reluctant to tell them anything, but he didn't want to worry them, either, if they noticed he was missing. 

"What for?" asked Leia, looking up from her datapad in what passed for a lounge on the _Falcon_. 

Luke shrugged, trying to sound casual. "I grew up here, you know. Thought I'd skim out and see how what's changed. Fly out to Obi-Wan Kenobi's old hut and see if he left anything that might be useful to us."

"We can go with you if you want some company--" Leia started to offer. 

He shook his head. "No. This is something I have to do for myself." 

Chewie yowled softly, nodding. He, too, missed home, and sympathized. Leia's face twisted in a grimace of pain before she caught herself and smoothed it to a neutral expression. 

Leia _couldn't_ go home. Her entire planet had been destroyed by the Empire in retribution for her work with the Rebellion. Through the Force, he could feel the pain that the memories of Alderaan stirred in her, and he wished there was something he could do to ease her grief. 

"Be well," was all she said, and she turned back to her datapad, trying to hide her tears. 

Chewie gave a low moan. 

Luke nodded. "I'll be careful," he said, and went out alone into the night.

***

With the twin suns below the horizon, the sky was full of brilliant stars unimpeded by the lights of cvilization and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Nights here were chilly enough that most beings huddled for warmth as best they could, with the blistering heat of day evaporating as quickly as water in the sunlight. 

Luke wore a simple black tunic and pants under the same long, black cloak he wore during the daytime, but he wasn't cold at all. He was reminded of a conversation he'd had with Master Yoda not long after he'd begun his training on Dagobah. 

"Go to a place where there is neither hot nor cold, hmmph, yes!" Yoda had exclaimed when Luke had complained bitterly about the planet's climate. 

"How do I do that?" Luke asked (somewhat petulantly, he recalled with a pang). "That doesn't even exist!" 

Yoda laughed. "When cold it is, it kills you, yes; when hot it is, it kills you, yes."

"I didn't come to _die_ out here, you know!" 

But Yoda just laughed harder and Luke had fumed all the way back to the hut. 

Now, flying alone under the desert sky in the landspeeder stored in the _Falcon_ 's cargo bay, he finally understood what Yoda had been trying to tell him. He still _felt_ the cold, but it did not bother him - not in the same way it used to. His ego had to die, but _he_ didn't. And that was okay, because his ego wasn't as helpful to him as he'd always assumed - it kept him from hearing the Force. 

And not hearing the Force was like being deaf and blind in a universe teeming with colors and sounds. Even this world - barren and empty as it was - was filled with the Force in every particle. And if he chose, he could reach out with his mind and sense _everything_ \- rocks and sand, a solitary krayt dragon, Jawas huddled in their massive, many-treaded sandcrawlers, Tusken Raiders out with their bantha herds, a pack of womp rats - all glowing with an inner light -

_Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter,_ Yoda had said to Luke once, when Luke had despaired. And Tatooine, viewed through the Force, was no exception. It was filled with the same energy that permeated the entire galaxy. It was not seperate from anything else. 

_Too bad I couldn't see this when I was growing up. It would have made farm work a hell of lot more bearable._

For most of his life, Luke had hated this world, caught in a fruitless push-pull to get somewhere, anywhere else. The tedium of moisture farming, the grim despair of Uncle Owen, and the quiet resignation of his Aunt Beru,the isolation - all of it dragged and weighed on him. He'd yearned for adventure, excitement, recognition off-planet. Anything, so long as it was different; anywhere, as long as it wasn't here. 

And he'd eventually gotten his wish, in the unexpected and unlikely forms of Artoo and Threepio, carrying a secret message from a beautiful princess, begging for help. Then Imperial troops had slaughtered the only family he'd ever known - and Ben had offered him a way to be a hero, save the princess and become a Jedi like his father. He'd gone with the old man and never even _thought_ about coming back. There had been no point. He'd left nothing but dust behind on Tatooine. It had nothing to offer him anymore. 

Yet here he was, nearly four years later, older and wiser and sadder than he'd ever thought possible. On his way to revisit the life he'd so precipitously left behind. 

_Why am I doing this? ...Because I had a feeling about it. Because I felt I needed to see what's here, whatever it is. I'm tired of running away. I don't want to be afraid anymore._

_Because I need to know who I am if I'm to face Vader again, and maybe I can find something here that will help me. Help us. It *feels* rights, somehow._

"Trust your feelings, Luke," the ghostly voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi was found of saying to him. 

_You always told me to trust my feelings, Ben. And then, when I wanted to save my friends, you told me not to trust them. Which was right? Or were you lying to me again?_

Luke sighed. He was being petulant and he knew it. The truth was that there was no pithy, universal answer that fit every situation. Sometimes, it was right to follow your feelings and sometimes it wasn't. Anger and hatred, pride and arrogance, were bridges to the Dark Side. Love and compassion, however, lead to the Light. His fight with Vader had been such a complicated emotional tangle that he supposed he was lucky he'd managed to escape at all. 

But if Luke's emotions were jumbled during that battle, surely the same was equally true for Vader. The Sith Lord could have easily killed Luke on several occasions, and yet had chosen not to. He wanted Luke alive. He wanted Luke to turn to the Dark Side. _Join me and we will rule the galaxy as father and son,_ Vader had cajoled him at the end. _It is your destiny._ And he had held out a gloved hand. 

Luke had rejected Vader and his so-called "destiny". He'd chosen his own way instead. But that image - of Vader's arm outstretched, the invitation echoing in his ears - still haunted him. 

... _He's lonely. He must be so lonely. He wants me to come back. He wants to know me. His son._

_There must be good still in him. No matter what other atrocities he's committed, there are still lines he won't cross. He genuinely doesn't want to kill me._

_*I* don't want to kill him, either. No matter what he's done. He's still my father. I never expected my father to be like this, but- now that I know, I can't kill him. I can't. I *can't*._

Maybe, as with the plan to escape from Jabba's palace, another path would open. Or maybe, he'd end up falling again, like he had at Cloud City - and this time, there would be no rescue at the end of it - 

His missing hand ached. He steered his mind back to piloting the landspeeder through the Tatooine night, letting the Force flow through him and guide him to where he needed to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yoda and Luke's exchange about temperature is based on Case 43 of the _Blue Cliff Record_ , a famous collection of Zen koans.


	3. Chapter 3

Luke had always loved flying. Some of that had been due to unabashed hero-worship of his father, Anakin Skywalker. He'd grown up believing the man was a pilot on a spice freighter, who had died in an accident not too long after Luke was born. When Luke flew, he felt like he was close to his father in the only way possible, like he was that much closer to heaven. It wasn't the sort of thing he ever mentioned to anyone, because he knew they wouldn't understand what he meant, and besides, it was private. But he also had a natural gift for it, and hours after endless hours of practice perfecting the techniques never detracted from the sheer unadulterated joy of rushing about at high speeds. 

Uncle Owen grudgingly allowed him to purchase and repair a used T-16 Skyhopper when he turned thirteen and started working with the vaporators full time. Once he got it working again, Luke spent every second of his free time after that out with Biggs Darklighter - two years older and usually carrying better gear that anything Luke could afford - flying. They ran their crafts through Beggar's Canyon, taking potshots at womp rats and pretending that they were Rebel agents. They raced each other across the dunes, doing flips and dives and all sorts of other stupid, crazy stunts that he didn't want his aunt and uncle to know about, and it wasn't just because these flights were dangerous (though they were). Somehow, Luke's enthusiasm triggered unpleasant fault lines through the Lars household, and it was much easier for everyone if he kept Owen and Beru as ignorant as possible of his doings away from home. 

When he was flying, he felt disconnected from his obligations. Fully connected to everything, flowing. Full and completely _himself_. To his surprise, using the Force - or letting the Force use him - was like flying, all of the time, in everything. Even when he stood motionless on the ground, the whole universe was there before him, full of endless wonder and surprises. It was the exact opposite of most of his experiences prior to leaving Tatooine: limited, helpless and finite. 

Tatooine was a vast world, but Luke's particular corner of it was significantly smaller. He'd learned more about planetary geography preparing for this rescue mission than he had growing up (though it helped when you could see it from above, in space). Growing up, his world centered around the Lars' moisture farm; he drove the twenty klicks to Tosche Station whenever he could; and they'd gone to Anchorhead for supplies maybe once a month unless they were particularly cash-strapped for the season. He'd never even been to the Mos Eisley spaceport until that fateful day with Obi-Wan, and Jabba the Hutt had been only a subject of whispered rumors until the crime lord had set a bounty on one of Luke's best friends. Now, well... 

Now he was a celebrated hero of the Alliance with an Imperial bounty on his head, and the obstacles that had seemed so daunting when he was a child were revealed for what they had always been: small and petty. 

He zoomed past Anchorhead, the closest thing in these parts to a town, though it only had a handful of buildings and a tiny gridwork of streets. Twenty minutes later, he passed Tosche Station, which was even smaller. He'd whiled away many hours with Biggs and - what was her name again? Camie? - sitting outside the eponymous station, hunched in the shade to avoid the glare and talking about everything under the sun. Life. Adventure. The future. How they were all going to be such big-shot stars someday, and get off this rock, just you wait. 

Luke smiled, a little sadly. Of all of them, Biggs was the one who they'd all expected to actually make good. He'd sailed into the Imperial Academy, earning a commission and a slot as an officer, only to jump ship and join the Alliance. Luke had withdrawn his application for the Academy again, after two other equally false starts, and for a long time, it looked like he was going nowhere. And then, he'd wound up at the Rebellion headquarters, having rescued one of their leaders, and he'd fought his first battle with Biggs and Artoo at his side. He and Artoo had made it through. Biggs hadn't. And as for Camie-- he'd never seen her again after that last day in Tosche Station, when Biggs had come back from the Academy one last time, and he'd tried to show them the space battle he'd seen out at the vaporators and no one had believed him. 

_I wonder what she's doing,_ he thought absently, but even as he thought it, he knew he wasn't going to knock on her door in Tosche Station in the middle of the night and ask to catch up. Assuming she was even still there. Assuming she even remembered him. She'd been pretty catty to him after she'd broken up with Biggs and started dating that asshole mechanic unimaginatively known as "the Fixer". (And what a loser he'd been to think that her disdain actually mattered in the grand scheme of things.)

Besides, would she even recognize him? Would _anyone_ he'd known in his old life recognize him now? 

Luke knew he'd changed a lot. His face had been scarred by a Wampa attack on Hoth the muscles in his arms had become more pronounced after Yoda's intensively physical training regime, and of course, there was his artificial hand. The prosthetic itself wasn't especially noticeable - Luke had resisted the temptation to go full-on cyborg, so it looked at least superficially humanoid - but if he took the glove off, people stared, so mostly he kept it covered. 

But what he noticed most about himself wasn't anything so blatant. His eyes were still blue and shining, but there was a clarity and strength -- and above all, _purpose_ \-- that had been lacking before. Instead of carelessly stomping about, he moved quietly and carefully, and he always looked for the exits before he sat down. And there was intensity and firmness in his voice that hadn't been there before. He spoke less than before, and quietly, and yet people listened when he did and took him seriously. All of this was light-years away from the child he had been, whom everybody ignored and no one - except for maybe Biggs - had ever taken seriously. 

_Still, I wonder if they ever made the connection that the Luke Skywalker they knew from around here, that crazy awkward farm boy, was the same Luke Skywalker who was a hero of the Rebellion. I wonder if they regretted how they treated me back then. I wonder what they must have thought - or whether they even heard the news on this backwater planet under Imperial interdict._

He sighed. There were some things he wasn't going to find out, and this was one of them. He thought he could live without knowing what his childhood acquaintances thought of him. As if their opinions could change anything now. 

He kept the landspeeder moving onward, further into the emptiness. 

***

As he'd told Leia, his ultimate destination on this trip was Ben Kenobi's hermitage. Even by Tatooine standards, it hovered on the very edge of civilization, or so it had seemed to Luke in his childhood. 

Ben Kenobi had always been a figure of mystery among the human settlers of the region. He lived alone in a tiny hut perched on the perimeter of the Judland Wastes, a rocky, desolate region prowled only by Sand People and the occasional scavenging band of Jawas, plus whatever wild beasts that had had been hunted to extinction on the sandier, more settled expanses. He didn't farm or seem to do anything to earn a living and money never seemed to bother him one way or another. He always wore the same threadbare robes and hood that were always covered in dust, the way everything on Tatooine was covered in dust. 

He spoke little, keeping to himself even on those rare occasions where he ventured into town. He seemed completely disinterested in the doings of others, except on the rare occasion where he would ask intensely personal questions while staring directly into your eyes. This had happened to Luke once, when he was seven years, and he never forgot it, though Uncle Owen was furious when he found out and made Luke promise never to have anything to do with the crazy old man again. 

Luke agreed, seeing no point in arguing - and more than a little scared by the vehemence in his uncle's eyes. Yet he always suspected that there was far more to Old Ben than met than eye, and his uncle knew things about him that he took pains to keep hidden from Luke. For one thing, his uncle seemed to hate the man with a passion, calling him a "wizard" and worse when his name came up. It was as if Old Ben were somehow personally responsible for Owen's misfortunes, though Luke was baffled at how this could possibly be so. 

Old Ben had always been there in his hut for as long as anyone could remember, and that was that. It was a miracle that the Sand People left him alone out there, but maybe he didn't have anything they wanted. Certainly, he didn't have anything that human thieves would want. Luke remembered some particularly arrogant teenage boys a few years older than he was who talked big about doing some particularly obnoxious flight manuevers outside of Ben's hut, but they got really quiet not too long after, and he doubted anything had ever come of it. 

Luke had never really thought much about Ben - he'd simply been one of the features the landscape, blending into the background, eternal and unchanging. It wasn't until he'd stumbled across a secret message hidden in the new Artoo unit his uncle had purchased - "Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" - that he'd made the connection to the old man, and even then, he'd assumed this mysterious "Obi-Wan" was some sort of relative. He'd been stunned to be rescued by Old Ben, who he hadn't seen in years, when the Artoo unit escaped into the desert in search of Obi-wan. And he'd been absolutely floored to learn that this Obi-wan was no mere relation, but Old Ben himself, a celebrated general of the Clone Wars who had been a personal friend of Anakin Skywalker.... who was no mere pilot on a spice freighter, but a Jedi Knight, one of the mythic - and all but extinct- guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. As was Obi-wan himself. All in all, it had been a tremendous day for revelations. 

Luke realized he was clenching his jaw and forced himself to relax. Yes, that was when Ben had lied to him, telling him that Dath Vader, an errant Jedi who helped the Empire hunt down and kill the Jedi Knights, had betrayed and murdered Anakin Skywalker. 

A story Luke had never thought to question until that moment on Cloud City when Vader had revealed it all to be a lie. 

Even a year later, it still ached, a hurt in his heart as well as his hand. _Why, Ben, why?_ he thought, the same old song over and over again. _Why didn't you tell me?_ One year later, and he was still no closer to understanding this particular betrayal than before. 

And beyond that, there were so many other questions. Why had Ben and Yoda isolated themselves for so long? Why hadn't they found new apprentices to train along with Luke? How had Leia and the Rebellion known where to find Obi-wan and yet only Obi-wan had known where to find Yoda? How had his two teachers ended up pressed far away on opposite ends of the galaxy? 

_If I had to choose one place in the galaxy for exile, Tatooine would NOT be it. Or Dagobah, for that matter. What a miserable, swampy, humid excuse for a planet. If I ever have to hide out for a few years, I'm picking a planet with OCEANS - a green, lush, temperate paradise. Someplace where all the local wildlife won't immediately try to kill me._

He supposed rocks would be okay. He liked rocks, and wide open spaces. Forested worlds tended to make him feel claustrophobic. What the hell had Yoda been thinking, setting up on a place like Dagobah, anyway? 

He supposed that his teachers' choices had been influenced by practical matters. All the life-form readings on Dagobah certainly made Master Yoda more challenging to find with orbital scanners. As for Ben - to come _here_ of all places - 

Oh. He flushed, and felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Ben had come to Tatooine because of Luke. He'd been waiting for Luke the whole time. 

_You spent years on this rock, waiting for me, and you couldn't even tell me the truth when we finally met face to face?_

Apparently not. 

To be fair, Ben Kenobi had saved his life twice over that day - first, by rescuing him from a Tusken Raider ambush; and secondly, by keeping him away from the farm when the Imperial stormtroopers had come seeking their newly purchased Artoo unit. And then a third time, a day or so later, on the Death Star, as a distraction for Darth Vader so that Luke and his friends could escape. The fact that Vader had deliberately let them escape - and that Ben's sacrifice might well have been for nothing - still haunted Luke when he thought about it. It was mitigated a bit by the fact that death didn't seem to be keeping Ben down very much - was this normal for Jedi? he didn't think so, or else why all the fuss about bringing them back - but it still hurt. 

_Why didn't you tell me, Ben? Why? Why?_

So much for coming to terms with things in time.

***

To his surprise, the house was still there and intact, aside from inevitable but mostly superficial sandstorm damage. In the desert, where it never rained, ruins could last for centuries, but he'd half-expected the Sand People - or even some brave human soul - to have vandalized it out of pique or boredom. But it was still there, white and shining in the starlight, just as he'd remembered it on that dazed, very eventful day he'd come here four years ago with Ben, Artoo and Threepio. 

For a moment, he worried it might be occupied with a new inhabitant with a dim view of a stranger approaching in the night. A few tendrils of his Force-sense confirmed that there was nothing alive inside and it was safe to go in.

He parked the speeder outside, a lamp in his hand and his lightsaber at his belt, and went up the broad stone steps, (the door long since ripped off its hinges) and into the house. Sand was everywhere, piled in drifts in the corners, the grit crunching under his feet as he made his way through the foyer and into the main open room.

Luke took a heavy breath. Here it was, not exactly as he remembered it, but surprisingly close. There was heavy round stone table in the center, where Leia's holographic message had hovered when Artoo played it, and the little bench carved out of the wall where he'd sat and patched up Threepio, while Ben regaled him with stories - of the Jedi Knights, guardians of peace and justice for a thousand generations in the Old Republic; of Anakin Skywalker, who was one of them; and of the Force that pervaded the universe and gave them their power. 

He shook himself out of his sudden reverie and began exploring the house. He found nothing. The house had always been spartan, but Obi-wan's few possessions appear to have been picked apart by scavengers since its owners' departure. The walls were bare and there were no signs of the weapons and strange wooden carvings he remembered from his last visit. There were no pots and pans in the kitchen, nothing mechnical, nothing even resembling furniture left anywhere in the house. The wooden chest in the corner, where Obi-Wan had kept his father's lightsaber, was missing, too. 

Luke slumped back against the bench, oddly disappointed. It wasn't that he'd been particularly looking forward to rifling through the belongings of a dead man (particularly one with whom he was not exactly on speaking terms). Nor was he particularly desirous to see Obi-wan himself right now. He'd just thought there might be - some hint of the past here. Some explanation for why Ben had lied to him. 

He'd thought he might find something that would point him towards the truth, or at least a chance at peace. 

He thought Ben might have left - _something_ , anyway. But there was nothing here. 

Silence. And underneath the silence, the dull, steady thumping of his heartbeat and his quiet indrawn breath. 

*** 

Every moment of that fateful day was etched into his memory, and when he closed his eyes and concentrated, the details swam vividly to the surface. Now he didn't even have to close his eyes to see Obi-wan standing in the corner, the blue-white blade buzzing in his hand as he showed it off to Luke. "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age," he'd called it. And of course, he'd told Luke a story to go with it. 

"Your father wanted you to have it when you were old enough but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He was afraid you would follow old Obi-Wan on some damnfool, idealistic crusade-" 

_And that was pretty much exactly what happened, wasn't it, Ben?_

"--like your father did." 

Always, back to Luke's father. Every single thread lead back to either Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader. Obi-Wan had been Anakin's friend and Vader's teacher. But he'd never mentioned that they were actually the same person, even when Luke had directly asked Ben how Anakin had died. 

" _A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine, until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father_."

How could Vader betray _himself_? It was ludicrous when you knew what had really happened but it was a lie with just enough truth in it to keep Luke from asking any more potentially awkward questions. 

_I've been relying on Ben's advice and he has proved he's not the most... reliable witness. But then, can anything Vader says be trusted?_

But Vader _hadn't_ lied to him - at least, about his parentage. He sincerely believed everything he'd said to Luke that day on Cloud City. It was Obi-wan, instead, who had lied. Why?

 _Between me and Vader, you have an abysmal track records with students_ , Luke thought absently, until the implications of that statement hit him.

 _He screwed up with Anakin, somehow. With Vader. He failed as a teacher. He was ashamed. And rather than admit it to me, he lied to me. And even when he knew I was going to face Vader, he still refused to tell me the truth. And so I walked into battle defenseless._

One good thing about this debacle: after learning the truth about his teachers' failures, he trusted himself more. He wasn't sure it was possible to screw up as much as they already. 

***

_Darth Vader is my father._

He hadn't told anyone yet. Not even Leia. He couldn't bear it. Would they even believe him? And if they did believe him - would they ever trust him again? 

Gradually, he realized that it wasn't a question of whether his friends or allies thought about it that mattered. It was a question of what _he_ thought about it. And he still didn't know. On the surface everything was fine, but push down just a little and it was still so fresh and raw inside him. 

_I always wanted to be like my father. Everyone - Owen, Beru, Ben - always told me I was like my father. They knew him. They knew who he was - and they lied to me._

Well, maybe Owen and Beru hadn't known the part about Anakin Skywalker also being Darth Vader. Maybe Ben had lied to them, too. Ben Kenobi was a good man - Luke _felt_ that when he spoke with him - but that didn't mean he couldn't deceive you if he felt like it. After all, hadn't Luke watched him deceive an entire squad of Imperial stormtroopers, allowing them to escape? Why was Luke surprised when Ben manipulated _him_? Did Luke really think he was so special? 

Or, maybe - they lied to him _because_ of who his father was. _Because_ Luke was so much like his father. Because they didn't want him to turn into Darth Vader, too. 

That said, he always knew Own and Beru were hidding things from him. There were so many stories they refused to tell, no matter how hard Luke begged. There were no holos of his father, no records, no mementos, just a name and a few scraps of stories that Luke had constructed into a larger-than-life reputation. 

His father was Owen's cousin or something - the exact relation was always left somewhat vague - but they were kin and that counted for something on Tatooine where life was hard and often short and people had to stick together if they wanted to make it through. Anakin Skywalker was a war veteran turned navigator, married an offworld woman, and had died with her in an accident not long after Luke was born. The chain of events was unclear, and Uncle Owen never liked it when Luke asked questions about it, leaving him with only a hazy outline of his parents' past. 

He'd never had any memories of his mother. He'd never really thought about her much, honestly; he'd always been more curious about his father. Now he wished he knew more. _What kind of woman would be Vader's bride?_ Or maybe she was Anakin's wife, and she left him when he became Vader - 

_Ben probably knows what happened. Would he tell me the truth if I asked him?_

_What other lies did you tell me, Ben?_

_Why did you let Darth Vader kill you? Was it penance?_

***

Luke had seen the stormtroopers guarding the _Falcon_ in the Death Stars docking bay slip away, and that it was their one chance for escape. He didn't realize - until it was too late - that Obi-wan had caused the distraction. 

"Ben?" he said, coming forward. He hadn't even spoken that loudly. None of the spellbound stormtroopers had turned around. 

Yet Ben had seen him. Had looked at him, directly in the eye, then back at Vader. And then he held his lightsaber steady and didn't react as Vader swung his blade right through him and had collapsed in a crumpled heap of robes, the extinguished lightsaber landing on top. 

There had never been a body.

Why? 

He hadn't heard what Ben and Vader said to each other. He'd been too far away. What had passed between them then, and twenty years ago? 

It was the first time he'd ever seen anyone die in front of him - okay, they'd shot some stormtroopers earlier that day, but he hadn't really stopped to pay attention because he'd been so busy trying to stay alive, and anyway, it still really didn't feel real. " _No_!" he screamed and _then_ the stormtroopers noticed him and they started firing. 

That had been the his introduction to Darth Vader, watching him murder a friend. Luke hadn't even known his name until Leia had filled him in once they were safely in hyperspace. Later, he learned of Vader's other atrocities from Leia - including how he'd tortured her while she was a prisoner on the Death Star. But somehow, all those other acts paled in comparison to his cold-blooded murder of Ben. 

Vader hadn't even turned to watch the ensuing gunfight between Luke and the stormtroopers in the docking bay. He was too busy prodding Obi-wan's empty robes, as if unable to believe the effects of his lightsaber strike. Then Luke had shot the latch for the blast doors, forcing them closed, trapping Vader on the other side. He kept shooting at the stormtroopers, in a desperate, futile lust for revenge, until he heard Ben's disembodied voice in his ear whisper, "Run, Luke, run!" And so he ran. 

Ben had sacrificed his life so that Luke and the others could escape and warn the Rebellion. 

Luke had already hated Vader for Ben's death. What made it worse was when they found the Empire's tracking device on the _Falcon_ when they came out of hyperspace, and realized their narrow escape had been anything but - which meant Ben had sacrificed his life for _nothing_. 

Luke had cried when he realized the truth. Not where anyone could see him, but still. It was bad enough that Ben was gone. It was even worse that his sacrifice was meaningless. 

He remembered suddenly something odd he'd noticed when he was leaving the hermitage with Ben four years ago, ostensibly to take him to Mos Eisley to go to Alderaan alone. Obi-wan hadn't taken anything with him when they left. He hadn't packed. He'd simply walked out the door as if he expected to be back any minute. When in fact... 

Luke wasn't sure when he realized the old man already knew the trip was going to be his last. _Knew_ Ben had deliberately set up the confrontation with Vader. 

" _Don't let yourself be destroyed as Obi-Wan did_ ," Vader had said. 

Was it really that simple? 

He didn't know what was true anymore. 

***

He thought back to that lightsaber battle with Darth Vader on Cloud City. Ben and Yoda were right about one thing, anyway - he'd been so out of his depth, and he'd known it as soon as he'd crossed blade with the Sith Lord, down to the core of his being. But he'd kept at it, desperately hoping he could make it through without losing his soul, all so his friends could stay alive. His friends were the whole reason he was training to be a Jedi. What good were psychic powers or a sense of one-ness with a mystical energy field if all your friends died when you could have saved them? 

(Never mind that his teachers had been right again: Vader had been using his friends' suffering as way to snare Luke. And it had worked.) 

"It is useless to resist," Vader had said, his lightsaber tip at Luke's throat, but Luke had gotten enough spirit to dodge and roll, get up and fly at Vader in a flurry of blows, only to backed further into a corner, dangling on the edge of oblivion. 

He might have made it out okay, maybe, but then Vader had swung faster than he could follow, he hadn't been able to block in time, and the blade had hit his right arm and-- 

\--he'd collapsed, screaming from the agony, his hand and lightsaber vanishing into the abyss.

Vader kept coming, and he'd kept crawling backwards one-handed, as far away from the shadowy figure on the catwalk as he could, because he wasn't dead yet and he couldn't let Vader touch him or else he would be completely lost. 

"Don't make me destroy you. Luke. You do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy." There was real passion in Vader's voice and for a second, Luke almost believed him, before he remembered Vader's methods of ending conflict - the death of his friends and thousands of innocents bystanders. 

Luke somehow managed to stand, clinging to the catwalk, even though he felt like he wanted to faint. "I'll never join you!" he managed, even though his defiance felt like spitting in the wind against the ominous wall of power that loomed over him. 

And then everything had gone to straight to the furthest depths of hell. 

"Obi-wan never told you what happened to your father," Vader began. 

All Luke's grief and rage came boiling to the surface at this monster's merest mention of his father - and of Ben. "He told me enough!" he spat. "He told me you killed him!"

"No," Vader said calmly. " _I_ am your father." 

All time stopped. He couldn't breathe. His vision filled with black. He was going to die. He was so stunned, so filled with pain, that he had no conception of anything other than pain. It was impossible. 

_Impossible_ \--

\--and yet--

"No," Luke moaned, shaking his head, as if he could ward himself against the deep knowing that flooded through the Force into his body. "No. That's not true." He was struggling not to cry. There was nothing more shameful than crying in front of the Dark Lord, nothing more humiliating, and here he was, crying anyway and he couldn't stop himself. 

Or maybe it was the shock and the cold and the wind and not the heartache that was tearing his eyes and voice. "That's impossible!" he spat through chattering teeth.

He hadn't known it was possible to hurt as much as he did right now. 

"Search your feelings. You know it to be true." Vader was relentless. 

And that was when Luke lost any semblance of control. "NOOOOOOOOOO!" he screamed, the tears running down his cheeks. "No." 

Vader kept talking - really, it was ridiculous of him to share these grandiose plans of destiny right now, when Luke wasn't able to appreciate it. Did he really think Luke could destroy the Emperor, when Vader had utterly beaten him, left him sobbing in an airshaft, in more physical mental and emotional pain than he had ever thought possible?

"Join me and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son." The Dark Lord stretched out his hand. Welcoming him. Welcoming his son, his only son, his long-lost son home. 

Welcoming the son he'd just mutilated, humiliated, beaten. 

All Luke had ever wanted, his entire life, was to see his father again. To be like his father. 

To fly, like his father. 

Luke looked down, his breath coming fast, at the abyss below. At Vader's outstretched hand. Time speeded back up again. 

His right hand had already descended. 

It was time for the rest of the body to follow. 

"It is the only way," Vader said. But _that_ was a lie and Luke knew it. 

So he didn't resist any longer. 

He simply let go. 

It was a long, long, long way to fall. At first, he'd thought he was going to die, and then, when he didn't die on impact but kept sliding down the long, silver tube and finally stopped, he thought he might actually live. Then the trapdoor opened up beneath him, and he fell out of the station and into the Bespin atmosphere. 

If he hadn't grabbed a projection - some sort of weather rod or stabilization thing, perhaps - he would still be falling. Bespin was a gas giant, with no solid land. He would have been killed from the pressure long before he hit anything approaching bottom. 

(He still had nightmares about falling sometimes.)

How had he known to call out to Leia with the Force? How had he known she could hear him? He was so far gone at that point, delirious with the shock and the pain, inside and out, that he wasn't conscious of any decisions on his part beyond holding on for as long as he could and chanting Leia's name as if it were a magic talisman that could save him. 

And she had. She'd gotten Chewie to bring the _Falcon_ around underneath the city, opened up a hatch, and caught him when he fell. She'd put him to bed and held his hand. She'd been through hell herself that day, tortured by Vader and forced to watch Han frozen in carbonite, and yet there she was at his side when he needed her most. 

He would have died if she hadn't found him. 

He owed Leia so much. She'd saved his life, several times over now. It was her holographic message, as much as anything Ben had said, that had gotten him off Tatooine to rescue her and join the Rebellion. And she was one of the few people he trusted who had never lied to him. 

*** 

He hadn't even noticed falling asleep, but suddenly he was awake again with every fiber of his being on alert, sensation flooding through his body from his Force-augmented senses. He was sitting upright in Obi-wan Kenobi's old hermitage, and Obi-wan was long gone, and he was alone, adrift in the desert in the Tatooine night. 

There was nothing for him here. Why had he come? What had he thought he would find here? Nothing but memories and pain he would rather leave far, far behind him. 

There were no answers here. They were only--

The Force tugged at him. 

Somehow, he managed to crawl back to the landspeeder, strap himself again and get the machine turned around and headed back towards the _Falcon_ before he collapsed into a sea of feverish dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

He must have set the landspeeder to autopilot, because when he came back to himself, the speeder was moving, and he wasn't consciously steering. It was still night, but the familiar constellations had shifted considerably, and dawn was only a few hours off. Slowly, woozily, he sat up, his mouth and throat parched, as the events of the last few hours filtered back into his consciousness. He was on Tatooine, on a trip alone out to Ben's old hermitage, and he'd... seen things. 

"Through the Force, things you will see, other places, the future, the past, old friends long gone," Yoda had said to him back on Dagobah. At the time, he'd only had glimpses of the future, of his friends tortured in a city in the clouds. 

Was he simply reliving all his painful memories at once, or the Force showing him glimpses of the past? What he'd experienced in Ben's hut felt more vivid that any recollection he'd ever experienced. 

Could the Force show him events he hadn't been present for as well? He'd never even thought to try it before. 

He stretched out his living hand out in front of him, eyes closed in concentration. _Show me my father. Show me what happened. Show me the truth. Let me see for myself who my father really was._

He wasn't sure if anything would happen, but he didn't open his eyes. He focused on his breathing, and the knowledge he was seeking. _Show me. Show me. Show me._

And the Force opened to him, and in the space between one breath and the next, the images flooded into his head. 

Now he knew what a droid like Artoo must feel like with a data download or receiving a major upgrade. Except that droids were programmed to deal with vast amounts of information coursing through their processing units and Luke wasn't. 

He saw a younger Obi-wan, wrapped in Jedi robes, with a younger man with a single dangling braid following by his side. He saw them fight side-by-side, their lightsabers flashing, against thousands of identically opponents, and saw the younger man's exhiliration as his starfighter zipped in and out between the enemy fighters, dodging death on either side. And he saw them his father's face twist as a hooded figure stepped out of the shadows to address him, the gleaming towers and spires around them reflecting the glory of the Old Republic at his finest; saw Obi-wan's look of horror at the younger man charged him, his scream - "Anakin!"- echoing in the midst of blazing fire - 

Even with the Force to buffer Luke, it hurt, and he gasped and clutched his head, his concentration broken. And as he did so, the visions abruptly ceased, and his mind was suddenly empty of everything except his own thoughts. 

"Oh," he managed. "Oh, oh, oh." _Be careful what you wish for, I guess._

He took a breath. Well. That hadn't worked out _quite_ how he thought it would, but there would be time to process it all later, after they were done with Jabba. Or perhaps he'd dare to venture into that teeming Force-stream again, when he was more prepared, more focused. But some things, at least, were clearer now. Suddenly, he was very calm. 

_I don't care what Obi-wan and Yoda say. For better or worse, I am my father's son. He was brilliant and daring and he loved life and he suffered much because of it. He was deceived by the Emperor and fell to the dark side and the galaxy paid the price._

_The Force is all-pervading, but it doesn't make you all-powerful, or else Vader and the Emperor would have already won. It only amplifies the qualities you already possess, for better or for worse. I think that was what Master Yoda was trying to teach me, although he could have gone about it a little better. This was why he was so grumpy I didn't have any patience! To have power and no patience is to be easy prey for the dark side indeed..._

_But the Force doesn't make you all-knowing, either. If it did, Obi-wan and Yoda wouldn't have screwed up so badly with my father. They are afraid of him, and they are afraid of me because I remind them so much of my father. But I am not my father. I am not bound by his actions. His fate is not mine, unless I choose it. And I do not choose it._

_I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. I am Anakin Skywalker's son. And I will bring him back to the light if it possible to do so_. 

***

By some quirk of fate - or perhaps unconscious habit had guided his finger tips when he was programming the autopilot - his flight path took him directly through what had once been the Lars' homestead. By the time he made the connection, the main house was just over the next ridge and would come into view any moment now. 

He hesitated, his fingers frozen on the control panel. He wasn't ready for this. He hadn't planned this. He was tired and emotionally exhausted and it had already been a long, demanding evening. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to see this. He hadn't come back here for this. 

But he didn't move. The landspeeder cleared the rise and he sailed over the wide, flat plateau towards the house he'd grown up in. 

It was only when he got right up close that he made his decision. He pressed a button and the speeder ground to a halt outside the big round dome that had been the center of the universe when he was a child. Haltingly, he eased himself out of the speeder and walked slowly towards the house. 

The last time he'd been here, four years ago, the smoking, charred skeletons of his aunt and uncle had been waiting to greet him by the door. 

Luke hadn't cried. He'd rushed until it was clear that there was no hope, and after that he moved very, very slowly and deliberately, for fear his control would at any moment if he hurried. He'd buried the bodies in the soft desert sand with a makeshift shovel he cobbled together out of a few loose parts in the back of his landspeeder, and piled rocks atop the pits to mark the spot as best he could. Then he'd taken the speeder back to where he'd left Obi-Wan and the droids, and they'd gone directly to the spaceport at Mos Eisley. 

He hadn't even gone inside the house. He didn't want to see the devastation the Imperial troops had wrecked there. He preferred to remember it as it was. There was a big, hollow emptiness in his heart when he thought of it that took a long time to fade. Like Obi-wan, none of the possessions he had so carefully hoarded in his old life would be of use to him in the new one, and he made no attempt to claim them. 

Mixed in with all the grief, both at the time and later on, was an equally devastating feeling of relief. Relief to be free of his obligations and the tedium of moisture farming. Relief to be starting out on an adventure, to follow in his father's footsteps. Relief to be able to finally make his mark on the universe, rescue a princess, become a hero. 

Relief he wouldn't have to have that last, awkward conversation with Uncle Owen about his departure, wouldn't have to feel that creeping, desperate shame and guilt about his abandonment of the farm for better things, wouldn't have to listen to his uncle's dismissive scorn of Luke's choices to follow that crazy wizard Ben Kenobi to the stars. Relief to never have to see the sorrow in Beru's eyes, to know he was hurting her but not being able to stop. Relief he wouldn't have to hurt them one last, final time by saying good-bye. Relief that they were beyond all pain and his choices could no longer harm them. Relief to no longer have to come back. 

He felt guilty about his relief, and it made it hard to grieve, even in the relative calm and elation following the Battle of Yavin. He'd mourned more sincerely for Ben's death, because it had been so unambiguously awful, and because even in their short time together, old Ben had been so accepting and kind to him. Now he knew their relationship had been more complicated than that - Ben's relationship to the truth notwithstanding - but at the time, he'd missed Ben more than he ever missed Owen and Beru. And he felt guilty for that, too. 

It was true his childhood hadn't been the happiest, but at the time, he hadn't been able to put words to exactly what was wrong. Owen could be harsh and bitter at times, but he was never deliberately cruel and he and Beru never punished Luke physically for any mischief. The damage was more to Luke's spirit than anything else. They hadn't starved his body, but intentionally or not, they'd stifled his imagination when they saw it in action. 

"Always he has looked to the horizon, to the future. Never his mind on where he was or what he was doing!" Yoda had complained about him. But Luke's incessant daydreaming, his earnest escapism through flying, friends and fiction, were coping mechanisms to survive the drudgery of the farming life on Tatooine. He'd dreamed and dreamed because dreams were all he had. It was not his fault his guardians could not give him what he truly needed. Perhaps he should have been able to go beyond that, but that seemed like a rather tall order for a child, particularly one with as few role models as Luke had had. 

_If Yoda thought I was too old, why didn't he come and train me himself? Or get Ben to do it? Did he try and Owen refused him? Why did Ben listen to Owen, anyway? Why did he even give me to Owen and Beru in the first place?_ He shook his head. More questions he would probably never get a straight answer to. And in the end, did it even really matter now that everyone but Yoda was dead? 

On that day four years ago, when he found their bodies, he thought he had been orphaned again. Yet despite Owen and Beru's attempts to include him in their family, he'd always thought of himself as an orphan, searching for his real home. Now here he was again, and Owen and Beru were dead, but his father - who he'd always thought was dead - was somewhere out there, fighting on the side of the Empire. Still alive. Still redeemable. And it was Luke's job to save him. 

He knew there was nothing here for him in the burned-out wreckage of his childhood home - no Jedi secrets, no hidden revelations, no magical artifacts or sacred relics, like he'd hoped for at Obi-wan's - but he went inside anyway. Because he hadn't done that, on that terrible day. And now it was time to bear witness to it. If he was truly determined to bring Anakin Skywalker back to the light, he could not have any dark spots remaining within his own soul. 

_If I can bear what I remember from that day, I can bear this now._

It was not as bad as he expected. As was the case with Ben's hut, the scavengers - human, Jawa, Sand People, various species of wildlife - had picked it clean of anything that had survived the initial rounds of Imperial firebombing. What was left was broken wreckage, burn marks everywhere, and dark ashes and flakes of metal wiring mixed in with the omnipresent sand. 

Aunt Beru would have thrown a fit at the mess. She'd been obsessed with keeping the sand out of the common living areas, to Luke and Owen's perpetual chagrin. Luke's earliest chore had been sweeping the living room with a broom and dustpan that were too big for him, and pretending they were a blaster and speeder to accompany him on his many adventures before Uncle Owen told him off for playing make-believe and to just get on with it. Luke had always thought that sweeping sand was just like moisture farming - monotonous, endless, ultimately futile. He never voiced this thought to Owen or Beru, though. 

One by one, he made himself go through every room, every doorway, leaving nothing out. The roof on the mechanic shed, where they used to store the droids at night, had fallen in, so he left that out instead, pressing his hands against the solid clay walls, remembering his first conversation with Threepio here. He paused frequently, letting the memories of the past flow over him as he did so: a particularly vehement argument with Uncle Owen about his Academy application in the courtyard; a quiet moment with Aunt Beru in the kitchen as she fixed him a steaming glass on bantha milk one night when he couldn't sleep. 

He let himself feel every emotion, positive or negative, let it swell up to the fullest and then abate back into calm steadiness. He let himself feel the pain, the guilt, the confusion, the resentment, the anger - and also, the love and sorrow and joy that was there, too. 

_Thank you, Uncle Owen. I'm sorry I couldn't be what you wanted me to be, I was always drawn in a different direction and you were perpetually tugging me back. Thank you, Aunt Beru, for shielding me from Owen's temper and guiding me as best you could. I was the son you never had and I'm sorry for my failings to you._

Only one place gave him pause - his old bedroom, littered with shards of broken crockery on the floor amidst the dust. He bent down and picked up a handful of pieces, let them fall out of his hands back onto the floor. Then he turned and went back out to the speeder. 

He looked out at the landscape, so familiar and yet so alien. _Thank you for shaping me,_ he thought - whether to his aunt and uncle, to the farm, to the entire planet, he wasn't quite sure. _For better or for worse, I wouldn't be who I am today without you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope - I hope you can be proud of me._

Luke had always wondered when Yoda would declare his training complete. What was he even looking for, anyway? But now, standing here, he knew that a Jedi wasn't ever a master of the Force. A true Jedi was master of _himself_. 

On the other side of striving - was peace. Calm. Wisdom, even. 

His lips quirked in a smile. Wisdom? Well, maybe that was going too far. But calm - 

For a hotshot, impetuous pilot-turned-Jedi, calm was pretty darn good. 

*** 

He'd forgotten how spectacular the dawns were here. The first sun poked over the horizon first, turning sky and sand alike a fiery red until the second, brighter, yellow-white sun joined it, and the colors of the landscape returned to various shades of brown. The whole spectacle took over an hour, and he watched the whole thing leaning against the white-clay walls of the entrance dome, until both suns were fully visible in the eastern horizon. Only when he started to feel the heat did he get to his feet and take the speeder back towards the _Falcon_ at last - this time, with no more unscheduled stops. 

_I can't do anything about the past,_ he finally decided. _The Force might show it to me, but I cannot change what's already happened - unless Obi-wan and Yoda have really been holding out on me._ He smiled wryly at the thought. _But if they did, they probably would have used it themselves to fix things rather than holding out for a fool like me. So let's focus on what I can change. The present. Right here and right now. The future. What will be._

_And in the meantime, I'm free. Free as I want to be. Free to choose. Free to be myself. No matter what anyone else thinks._

***

"There you are," Leia said, when he strode into the _Falcon_ a few hours later. Threepio was communing with the ship's computer and Artoo and Chewie were absorbed in holo-chess, although Chewie looked up long enough to growl a welcome before returning to the game. "I was beginning to wonder if we needed to send a rescue party out for you, too. Did you find what you were looking for?" 

Luke shrugged. "Just some ruined old buildings. And a heck of a lot of sand." 

"Was it worth the trip?" As usual, Leia had a knack for asking questions that went straight to the heart of things. 

He cocked his head, thinking it over. Finally, he said, "I think so. But it wasn't what I expected." He sat down on the couch beside her and leaned back against the cushions. "The past is a tricky thing. It shapes who we are, but it doesn't define us. Or our futures."

"You think you'd ever come back here when the war is over?" It was an innocent question on the surface, but there was a whole minefield of emotion underneath. 

Luke shook his head. "There's nothing for me here anymore. But it was good to see it for myself. To know that. So I don't... second-guess myself later on." 

She shifted on the couch next to him, suddenly all business. "Well, Mr. Local Expert, are you ready to send Artoo and Threepio out so we can get this little show on the road?"

"Yes," said Luke. "I'm ready."


End file.
